“Dante invited him to the Feast of the Seven Fishes at his folks’ house on Christmas Eve,” Olive said. “You could do something there.”
Like what? But that meant she had a target to try and figure it out.
“Honestly just talking to him would be good. What did he do to get back into your good graces?” Olive asked.
“He kept texting and when I didn’t respond he had the studio hire us,” she said. “He just didn’t stop reaching out to me.”
As she said it, she realized she hadn’t done that. She’d gone radio silent, as was her way. Probably just confirming to him that he’d been right to walk away. Paisley thought about the moment she started to fall in love with Sean and knew it was that day at Mrs. B’s. She knew then what she had to do. It was going to take this entire family that she’d built for herself.
Her sisters of the heart, Olive and Delaney, and their men, the ladies of Mrs. B’s building and a sincere apology and baring her soul. She had been afraid to say that she loved him because the last time she’d let herself love she’d been hurt. And to be fair she hadn’t let herself.
Love was just something that happened. She’d told Sean that her mom had loved the wrong man and it had broken their family, yet she’d never told him that his love could fix her and help make them a family.
“I’ve got it. I think I’m going to have a get-together tonight. Can you guys make it?”
“Of course,” they both said at the same time.
“Good. Now I’ve got some shopping, planning and calls to make.”
“You make the calls, I’ll do the shopping,” Delaney offered. “And Olive can do the planning. What do you have in mind?”
They sat down in the mall coffee shop and she outlined her plan. When she was finished, she felt like this was her best shot at getting Sean back and convincing him that they were meant to be.
Coffee with Dante had been nice and it had made Sean realize how despite everything, he’d made good friends here. He noticed Nolan at his gym and they talked as well. For the first time in his life he had friends who weren’t in the business and didn’t need him to help move their career forward.
Dante had invited him to something called the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and even though he knew that Paisley was going to be there and that she hadn’t called or texted since the night they broke up, he was going to go. His child was going to be a part of this friend network of hers and he needed to be as well.
Bert and his fiancée Christa had arrived and were settling into the guest house.
He’d done a lot of thinking about being a father. A parent. The word was as foreign to him as love was. He knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy path. He’d researched roles before and had really gotten into the characters, understood their way of thinking, and he knew that fatherhood wouldn’t be like any role he’d taken on before. But he also knew that he could do it.
First up, he’d decided he was going to buy a house here in Chicago. He knew that Paisley wasn’t going to move to LA and he wanted to be close to the baby. When would they know if it was a boy or a girl?
He still had so much to learn.
Sean tried to keep from checking his phone because it made him feel like a chump, but he missed her. He was waiting for her to reach out to him, to tell him she was sorry again...yeah, he wanted to hear it one more time. His anger had burned out after the weekend, but pride wouldn’t let him be the first to text.
Which was stupid and the reason why he was probably going to have to be fake-happy around Paisley and his child for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to be the weaker one. He’d never been that in his life and didn’t think he could start now.
Hell.
The buzzer for the gate rang and he opened the app to see who it was, hoping it was Paisley. But instead, there was a delivery guy.
He buzzed him in.
When he opened the front door, the guy handed him a box. “I love all your movies.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I get a photo? I know you probably get this all the time,” he said.
“Sure, I don’t mind. If you didn’t watch my films, I wouldn’t have a career,” he said, smiling as the guy took a selfie with him.
“Thanks. Merry Christmas.”
“You too.”
The guy left and he realized that he hadn’t felt Christmassy at all since he’d left Paisley’s apartment. He doubted he would again. Sean had never expected anything special during the holidays. He’d done his best to just take them as they came but this year...it had been different. He remembered the trees and baking cookies and it hurt.